My dear friend, I feel you! Not only do I empathize; I also do sympathize having suffered from a "Rescuer" pattern almost my whole existence: probably the trickiest and hardest part of my former f*cked-up subconscious program!
So, first thing I needed to do was to recognize it and discover how it was created in the first place (obviously, a dysfunctional family system is always involved). I wrote this old article about it:
Then, I had to start the painful work and was astonished by finding 4 different levels related to fellow humans:
1. Not all mortal beings are inherently good.
2. Toxic inherently good people don’t deserve my investment.
3. Even non-toxic inherently good people wouldn’t earn a chance unless they asked for some guidance explicitly.
4. Trust is a shared responsibility in relationships. Fantasizing about the potential does not make it a reality. If one mistake destroys trust, then there has never been any built reserve in the first place. Investing and being consistent with your deposits doesn’t guarantee that the other person pays attention and considers it.
I'm still working on the 5th (and hopefully last level) related to animals. It has been 6 months; I'm seeing progress but it's still too hard to cope!
